University of Virginia Library

To Doctor GREEN.

The arduous Task, Infection to defeat,
Be thine; the Heart-corroding Pang remove,
And chearful Health to drooping Life restore.
From all the Channels of the vital Stream
Successful drive the lurking Mischief forth,
By salutary Draught, or various Skill,
By Esculapius taught, with sov'reign Pow'r
To calm the Tempest of the raging Blood.
When dark seditious vapours from the Lake
Of Life ascend, to blot bright Reason's Ray,
And dim the Eye of Thought: when wild Uproar
Confounds the intellectual Frame, and all
The raging Anarchy of Soul prevails,
How dismal then the Chaos of the Mind!
Each broken Sentiment and shatter'd Thought,
The fractur'd Phraze unhing'd, and all the Wreck
Of thinking Pow'r! Can of immortal Minds
The Offspring, Thought, with noxious Fluids blend,
And tinge Ideas in the tainted Mass?
So closely ty'd is the connubial Knot,
Which weds with Flesh the intellectual Soul;
And so reciprocal their tender Springs,
So corresponding are their feeling Pow'rs.
Amazing Laws! where Agents so unlike
United form the noble Creature Man.—
Man, after his Creator's Image made,
To Angels near a-kin; yet compass'd round
(Sad Legacy!) with mortal Maladies
By Flesh inherited; a thousand Ills
His feeble Frame obnoxious find without,
Or dreadful raise rebellious Feuds within;
When Insurrections strong from Humours rise
Hostile, imbib'd in soft respiring Gales,
The Vehicles of Death oft found, or when
Excess, the Child of Appetite unrein'd,
Would act auxiliar to the Hand of Fate,
And midway snap the thin-spun Thread of Life;
Did not thy healing Hand with happy Skill
Retrieve the Wretch from Death's voracious Jaw,
Recal to Life, and disappoint the Grave.